Filler
by Kitcat39
Summary: Ichigo dies. That should be the end of it, right? Well, it it isn't over for Kon. After all, Ichigo's body is still hanging around, so why shouldn't he use it? Warning: character death, AU.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. II wish I did though.**  
><strong>Warning: AU, character death<strong>  
><strong>AN: My very first Bleach fan fic. Yay! This was written because Kon seriously does not get enough love. This is kind of an angsty, existential thing, but it has a happy ending, so read and enjoy!<strong>

Filler

When Ichigo's friends came for him after the Winter War, Kon almost immediately knew that something was wrong. He didn't pay much mind to it though, since he'd spent way too long trapped in the Twelfth Division, but it was definitely there. They all seemed so depressed and listless, except for Ichigo, who wasn't with them. He wasn't anywhere in fact, which was pretty weird, since the strawberry never strayed far from his friends. Of course, when he asked where Ichigo was and Orihime started crying hysterically he quickly figured it out. He just couldn't believe it. Kon had always seen the redhead as nothing less than a force of nature, an invincible hero that could not be defeated and could not be killed. It had occurred to the mod soul once or twice that the substitute shinigami might die at some point, but that thought was always pushed back to the corner of his mind. Ichigo was Ichigo, he couldn't just die, until he did.

It turned out that there was an actual reason for him to be found. Apparently, though Ichigo was gone, his human body remained and, well, Kon didn't need more of an explanation than that. They told him that it would be for the best, that it was what Ichigo would have wanted, but Kon knew what they were really thinking. They just wanted him to fill in for the substitute shinigami, like he always did. He guessed that they weren't ready to admit that their beloved strawberry had kicked it. He agreed to do it, of course, since he wasn't ready to admit it either. So he did exactly that. The mod soul was grabbed out of his stuffed self and jammed into Ichigo's still warm, still breathing body. It was as easy as it always was, like slipping into a favorite worn out t-shirt. He half expected Ichigo to pop out and yell at him a little before rushing off to defeat the monsters, rescue the princess, and save the day once more. But he didn't, not this time.

Isshin let him live with his family, which was nice of him. Kon thought that he'd be left to fend for himself to be honest, since Isshin had no reason whatsoever to house the guy wearing his dead son's body, but the man must have been some sort of saint under that scruffy beard. The goat-faced idiot had welcomed him into the Kurosaki household with open arms and treated him like he was some long-lost cousin, if not a full-fledged son. It had been hell explaining it to Karin and Yuzu though. He hadn't actually had to say much, but having to listen to Isshin make his daughters understand that their big brother had been murdered while taking down an evil shinigami during a war in the afterlife and that the Ichigo in front of them wasn't actually Ichigo was pure, indescribable torture. Karin had taken it badly. He would never forget how she leapt at him like a wild cat and started wailing on him, tears streaming down her face as she screamed that he was a liar, that her big brother couldn't be dead, he just couldn't. She refused to speak to him after that, except for trivial things like "Give me the remote" or "Get out of my way." Kon refused to react to her terse rage, because there really was no point to it. It's not like an apology could bring back her brother. Yuzu, however, had been oddly okay with him. Sure, she wept and mourned, but she didn't blame Kon for any of it. She told him that it was what Ichigo would have wanted, and this time he believed it.

Kon went back to school as soon as he could with his best Ichigo frown on his face. He was an expert at playing the part, if he did say so himself. Ichigo's friends barely suspected a thing. Well, the ones not in the know that is. He mostly stayed away from the Quincy and the two weird humans, and they seemed to be perfectly fine with that arrangement. It's not that he didn't like them. They were all nice enough, especially the smoking hot Orihime, but he just didn't want to see the haunted look in their eyes every time they so much as glanced at him. They wanted Ichigo. He was nothing but a shoddy replacement.

After a few months of constantly pretending to be someone else, Kon began to let his disguise slip a little. He started smiling more. He grew out his hair a little. He bought some new clothes that weren't entirely in line with Ichigo's fashion sense. He toned down the constant, mind numbing studying that the berryhead did, letting his grades slip from straight As to the more comfortable B to B-plus range. He used his newly acquired study-free time to volunteer at the local animal shelter, because he could empathize with strays better than he could with all the idiots in his class, half of whom seemed to want to beat the ever-loving shit out of him. He even signed up for a sport, cross-country running, something the antisocial Ichigo would never do. He quickly became one of the team's star athletes of course, since he was modified for speed after all.

Ichigo's friends were happy for him, thinking that their little strawberry had finally matured enough to not drive away everything vaguely good for him. They were always there for him, almost suffocatingly so at first. However, eventually all of them, Keigo, Mizuiro, even Tatsuki, started to drift away. It was like they knew on some subconscious level that he wasn't Ichigo. Kon was fine with that. It's not like they were his friends. He barely knew them, so it couldn't hurt to see them go.

He got lonely after a while, so he made new friends, like Kaito and Ryuunosuke on the cross-country team, his math tutor Hideki, and his hot coworker Emi at the shelter. Around them he didn't have to act like Ichigo, because they'd never known the guy and thus had no basis of comparison. He could crack stupid jokes, and talk about things he actually liked, and gaze longingly at all the voluptuous girls he'd love to got out with. Well, he couldn't do the last one with Emi, since she was one of those voluptuous girls. He would never date her though, because they were friends, and the sheer thrill of having legitimate friends overrode his love of the female form. It's not like he was dating anyways. He'd tried it once, but it didn't go well. He and Yuina, the absolutely gorgeous exchange student who was taking chemistry with him, had gone out to dinner and a movie one Friday night. They talked, they laughed, they flirted, they generally acted like silly teens on a first date. It all went very well until he dropped Yuina off at her doorstep. She leaned in for a kiss and Kon panicked. It's not like he didn't want the kiss because he really, really did, it just seemed. . . wrong. It suddenly hit him that the body he was in wasn't his, it was Ichigo's, and making out with some chick he hardly knew when for all he knew Ichigo had never kissed anyone seemed pretty damn skeevy. He ducked away from her oncoming lips and, after making the standard 'I don't think this'll work out, it's not you it's me, let's just be friends' speech, he ran like the coward he was and didn't stop for anything. He raced through the streets of Karakura for nearly an hour before he slowed down and began the slow trudge home. It was nearly midnight when he go back to the clinic, where for some reason Isshin had decided to wait up for him. The man didn't say anything, he just let Kon in and patted him on the shoulder in a consoling, almost parental way. Kon felt his eyes getting a little teary, but he forced them back and fled to his, no, Ichigo's room, where he spent the rest of the night cuddling with the stuffed lion he used to inhabit that was now relegated to a mere comfort toy.

Eventually he graduated high school, with a pretty good class ranking might he add, though it was definitely bolstered by Ichigo's unnaturally good grades. Kon had long before decided to become a social worker to help disadvantaged children, which was something he had to go to college for. The college he got accepted was a nice place. It wasn't too expensive or too big, and it had a good program for the career he wanted, but the major draw was that it was in Kyushu, which was as far away from Karakura as one could get without having to grab a paddle and start rowing for the continent. It was perfect. Kon knew he would eventually have to leave town since the day he took up residence in a certain redhead's life. He constantly felt like he was being choked under the weight of Ichigo's immense shadow. In Karakura he couldn't go ten feet without being bombarded by some reminder that he was unwanted, nothing better than some identity-stealing lowlife. So he ran for it. Hey, Kon never claimed to be brave. That was always Ichigo's job.

He stood hesitantly outside his newly assigned dorm room, twisting his orientation papers in his hands until they frayed. As much as he thought he wanted a fresh start, he was freaking out a little. Here he was, on an entirely different island than Karakura, surrounded by people who didn't know who the hell Ichigo Kurosaki was. To them, that name was nothing but text on a student ID and a signature on the paperwork. He had the sole responsibility of attaching a person to that stupid, heavy name and, well, it was freaking terrifying to somebody who had long ago resigned himself to having to pretend to be someone else for the rest of his life, or at least until he was tossed away again.

"Hey man, you my new roomie?"

Kon, startled by the sudden voice, spun around and nearly slammed into the guy who had snuck up behind him while he was lost in thought.

"That depends," Kon said as he backed away a few inches, "Are you Akio Goto?"

"Yep," the man, now named Akio, answered, "So you must be Ichigo Kurosaki then, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," Kon replied. Behind him someone giggled. He whipped around, ready to lash out at whoever dared to laugh at Ichigo's name, only to come face to face with a little girl with the same face as Akio.

"Nanami, don't laugh at other people's names," Akio scolded, before turning to Kon with a sigh. "Sorry about that, my little sis can be a little rude."

"Am not!" the girl pouted, looking an awful lot like Karin after she lost a soccer match.

Kon cracked a smile. "Don't worry about it, I'm used to rude little sisters."

He hefted his one of his bags over his shoulder and opened the door. He went to step in, but something held him back.

"You know, Ichigo is a stupid name," he said, "Just call me Kon from now on, okay?"

"Sure," Akio replied as he held the door open, "Is it a nickname or something?"

"Or something," Kon answered, as the smile on his face became wistful, "A good friend used to call me that."


End file.
